ADVERTISING...ART VS. TECHNOLOGY - The Pocket Internet

"ADVERTISING...ART VS. TECHNOLOGY"

(Page 3)

We do a very mean arithmetical thing. At the end of the year, we add up his hits and divide them by his times at bat and give him a cruel, heartless number known as his batting average. And, even though he has a wife and six children and writes excellent prose, if his batting average falls below a certain minimum, he finds that he is not getting paid as much next year. And, if you think this is not fair, let's put 18 Little Leaguers in a room.

"The batting average of creative advertising
people, likewise, tends to be the only
way we can measure output..."

Give me their batting and fielding averages, and you use only your intuition. Let's choose up sides and see which team wins.

The batting average of creative advertising people, likewise, tends to be the only way we can measure output, regardless of personal dependence on either intuition or fact. Does this mean that arithmetic is superior to intuition? Of course, it doesn't. Pure fact gathering is not of itself a very nourishing activity. You can fill a room with census data and it won't do anything but turn yellow. What, then, is the relationship of intuition to arithmetic? Is it just one of those things where you shrug your shoulders and say you need a little of both? I don't think so. I think it is very clear that information is the raw material of creativity. It is that application of intuition to information that produces creativity. The great works of art and literature have not been created by intuition that occurred in a vacuum.

"..information is the
raw material of
creativity."

Shakespeare obviously drew on a tremendous wealth of contact with his fellow man as well as some discrete research into the writings of others. The renaissance masters were notable for their intense study of human anatomy and their notebooks show a fantastic attention to minute detail. Why then this sudden outcry that advertising creativity is being smothered by research techniques which are merely an extension of the proper study of mankind? I think this outcry stems from fear. The kind of fear that always arises in times of technological innovation.

"Only in the last five years
have we become aware of a
new kind of steam engine --
the steam engine of the brain."

It is only 100 and 30 years ago that technology provided a substitute for the power of man's muscle, other than the domestic animal. About 1830, the steam engine extended the power of a man's arms and legs a thousand times. It was not universally acclaimed. People were terrified by what the invention of the power loom would do to them, and bloody riots broke out. The gasoline engine, in a more sophisticated era, created at the outset more contempt then fear. The jet engine and the rocket we except more calmly. But, all we have gotten used to is having our muscle extended... and we are no longer afraid that a machine that helps our muscle will be a substitute for us. Only in the last five years have we become aware of a new kind of steam engine -- the steam engine of the brain. For the first time in history, one or two functions of the human brain can be carried out better by a machine called the computer. It has a better memory for simple facts then we have. It can remember and compare them many thousands of times more quickly than we can. Neither of these activities are very much fun, and you'd think it would have all the personal popularity of a power lawn mower.

But on the contrary, some people in the advertising industry are almost as hysterical as the rioting English Weaver's of an earlier century. Instead of smashing looms they are hacking away at any and all applications of technology to advertising. It is that age-old motivation -- the terrifying fear of innovation.

Now I am not a researcher or a mathematician.

"My vast knowledge of Oriental
Religions is directly traceable
to my successful efforts to find
acceptable substitutes for every
college math course."

The records of Blake school will show that I failed in both solid and trig. My vast knowledge of Oriental religions is directly traceable to my successful efforts to find acceptable substitutes for every college math course.

I am an advertising writer in a company run by advertising writers who are dedicated to the proposition that there is nothing more important in their lives than a good ad. And, by a good ad we don't mean a pretty one to hang on the wall. Or, a cute commercial that will show what clever wits we are. By a good ad, we mean an ad that does a good job of selling the advertisers' product or service. It is an ad that says the right thing to the right people at the right time in a combination of media from which every ounce of fat has been trimmed.

"By a good ad we mean an ad that does a good
job selling the advertiser's product or service."

Ads that do this do not come from exercising one's powers of intuition by looking at the ceiling. They come from creative men who have an almost insatiable demand for information about the product and its customers. They cook products in their own kitchens at home, trudge through production lines, stand in stores, make calls with salesmen, and read everything on the subject they can lay hands on.

Do these true creative men shun the contributions of mathematicians, psychologists and researchers?

"..a creative man
is always hungry..."

Of course they don't. These people are another and valuable source of what a creative man is always hungry for... the facts from which his intuitive powers will finally hammer out a creative solution.

And, when he develops a creative strategy, why should he be afraid to put it to the technological tests that will help him determine if he is on his target? Rather then fearing pre-testing, he is more likely to be running the research people ragged with his endless requests for projects to check his thinking.

When his basic creative strategy is proved, he will then want to give it the finished execution... and there is no reason why an ad that says the right things to the right people can't also be a breathtaking production of art or music. But, it had better be saying the right things to the right people or all but breathtaking will go for naught.

Gentleman, I suggest that we bury once and for all the idea that advertising technology is the enemy of advertising creativity. It is true that, in the hands of the incompetent, these technologies can be used to stifle good ideas. It is also true that gasoline engines in the hands of incompetents kill 40,000 people a year. But we are not going back to the horse because some people are not smart enough to drive a car. And advertising is not going back to the day when long-haired and self-styled geniuses palmed

"The creative man who rejects
the services of advertising
technology is simply demonstrating
that he is non-creative."

off ads from last year's proof books on the grounds that they were the product of unchallengeable perfection of instinct.

The creative advertising man who rejects the services of advertising technology is simply demonstrating that he is non-creative. It simply means his mind is not open to new ideas about his own business... all the while he is having the brassbound nerve to sell other people ideas about their businesses.

I think, in a word, that it is time advertising men took some of their own medicine. Let's at least try to be as creative as the people we serve.

It is now 1:15. And, from my experience as a reporter and a cameraman, I know that this organization begins to shift in its seats at precisely 1:15. I will, therefore, perform the most difficult feat in public speaking. I will thank you all warmly, and sit down.

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